Strauss-Kahn files legal action over tell-all book

Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has filed suit to halt the publication of a book in which Argentinian author Marcela Iacub shares details of their 2012 liaison, his lawyers said Monday. "Beauty and the Beast" is set for release on Wednesday.

Disgraced IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn is taking legal steps to stop a controversial new book by Argentinian-born Marcela Iacub detailing their liaison, his lawyers said on Monday.

In "Beauty and the Beast," due to be released on Wednesday, Iacub says she had a relationship with Strauss-Kahn from January to August 2012, in the midst of the scandal over accusations he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid the previous year.

She doesn't name Strauss-Kahn in the book, but she told Le Nouvel Observateur magazine that it was about him, while admitting that she had mixed fiction with reality.

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they will on Tuesday seek the seizure of the books after suing Iacub and her publisher Stock for an attack on his private life.

If that is not allowed, they will seek for every copy of the book to carry an insert, lawyers Richard Malka and Jean Veil said without giving details on what they want it to say.

Strauss-Kahn, who has called the book an 'abomination' is seeking 100,000 euros ($132,300) in damages and compensation from Iacub and Stock and a similar amount from Le Nouvel Observateur.

Crude language abounds in the book, which touches on the incident in New York and the cases in France against Strauss-Kahn, as well as his relationship with Anne Sinclair, his fabulously rich wife of 20 years who announced last July that she had split from her husband.

Iacub's new work is the latest in a long line of books, plays, TV shows and movies on the spectacular fall from grace of a man who was once tipped to become France's next president.

The Socialist politician in December agreed a financial settlement with the hotel maid whose 2011 allegation of sexual assault forced him to resign from the International Monetary Fund.

But the silver-haired 64-year-old is still being investigated in France as part of a probe into allegations he procured prostitutes for sex parties in Europe and in Washington.